Trainer for gun-toting teachers: 'Make it hard to kill a kid'

Dec. 28, 2012
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In this 2008 photo, students arrive at the Harrold Independent School District in Harrold, Texas, where personnel are allowed to carry concealed weapons. Utah and Ohio gun groups are offering training to arm teachers in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings. / Ron T. Ennis, AP

by Cathy Lynn Grossman and Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

by Cathy Lynn Grossman and Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Class was in session Thursday for about 200 Utah teachers who will get special firearms training - working with a plastic gun in a conference room at a hockey arena - to carry concealed weapons in their classrooms.

Since the Dec. 14 massacre of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and the National Rifle Association news conference touting arming teachers for school security, such classes are drawing fresh attention.

In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Foundation is swamped with 20 times more applications - from teachers and administrators to custodians and bus drivers -- than they have space for in a three-day tactical defense course to be offered this this spring.

Jim Irvine, president of the Ohio foundation, said Thursday that the $1,000 per person Armed Teacher Training Program would be free for the 24 people selected from more than 400 applicants. "What better use for an educational foundation than to help educators protect our children," he said.

It is legal in Ohio to bring a concealed weapon on school grounds if a school district has granted permission. Irvine expects more will do so since the Sandy Hook killings.

"School boards were just in denial. That denial got ripped away in Newtown, Conn. The idea is to make it hard to kill a kid," he said.

The school personnel chosen for the class must already have basic firearms training and a concealed carry permit and come to the Tactical Defense Institute in rural West Union, Ohio, with their own handgun, holster, extra magazines and speed loaders.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, shortly before their latest class was set to start, Clark Aposhian, chairman of the sponsoring Utah Shooting Sports Council, said they were expecting at least 200 people to attend.

They have trained about a dozen teachers a year. Utah has allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons on K-12 campuses for 12 years now and, said Aposhian, "We have never had any accidental or intentional shootings." He serves on the state board where any violation of concealed weapon laws would be reported.

"Teachers are professionals. They will take appropriate measures to maintain a gun discreetly and safely," said Aposhian, a tactical firearm instructor.

All they needed to bring was a driver's license as Utah does not require any gun licensing other than an application for a concealed carry permit. The applications do not require you to list your occupation, and concealed weapon permit records are closed so no one knows how many teachers are already armed.

Gun-toting teachers are "a deterrent when the bad guy comes in. He could be surprised by return fire from any direction. We are not expecting teachers to go out and actively engage the shooter. We want them to do the lockdown drill they have been trained to do," Aposhian said.

"But it fails when someone breaks into a classroom. This is where having a firearm would be a better choice than diving in front of the bullets to protect the kids," he said.

There will be no live firing guns in Thursday's class. It's designed to teach handling a weapon "with an emphasis on safety." Also on the curriculum: Utah's laws on firearms and the use of force and federal firearms laws, said Aposhian, who also led an effort in 2002 to have the state allow concealed weapons on the campus of University of Utah.

The Council, the state's leading gun lobby, is waiving its $50 fee for the training. The instruction, featuring plastic guns, was to start Thursday noon in a conference room at Maverick Center, a hockey arena in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley.

Utah is among the few states that let people carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools without exception, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported in a 2011 compendium of state gun laws affecting K-12 education. The other states are Hawaii, New Hampshire and Oregon. Delaware, like Ohio, does not prohibit concealed carry on public school property but the school districts may each set their own rules to prohibit firearms.

Parents of Utah schoolchildren have no way to tell which teachers carrying a handgun. By law, Utah gun permit records are closed to the public. In Arizona, where gun permit records are also closed, Attorney General Tom Horne has proposed amending state law to allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.

Arming teachers is dangerous, Carol Lear, a chief lawyer for the Utah Office of Education, told the Associated Press. She argues teachers could be overpowered for their guns or misfire or cause an accidental shooting.

"It's a horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten idea," Lear said.

Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh, president of Utah Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, said arming teachers wouldn't provide an extra level of security. "We absolutely need to provide a safe environment, and to add more guns to the mix I'm not sure makes it safer," she said.

"What I'm hearing from my members is that guns have no place in schools," she said.

As for the idea that armed personnel in a school would give would-be shooters second thoughts about attacking a school, Gallagher-Fishbaugh said, "These are individuals who have mental health issues - I wouldn't presume to know what they're thinking."

"I support the Second Amendment," he said. "I believe in concealed carry. But there is a huge difference between my right to be armed to protect myself and my family versus me being tasked with a public-safety function to protect the masses. And that's what we're talking about."

Trump said police can't walk the beat without extensive psychological, mental and physical training. "We put them under an enormous amount of scrutiny any time a Taser is used, much less a firearm - yet we're going to step back and say, 'Lower that standard.' "

Asking schools to allow armed staff would be an "implementation nightmare," he said. "You're asking schools, in essence, to operate a quasi-law-enforcement agency, which is far beyond their expertise, far beyond their capacity."